Setting up for the second day of the fast.

Their placards say “Support Harvard Workers” and “Stand for Security”. This action specifically supports employees of Allied-Barton¹stationed at Harvard. To the administration, they are not Harvard employees. Outsourcing is the major tool in Harvard’s 30 year long program to deunionize the Harvard’s low wage labor force.²

From 1995 to 2001 the Harvard Living Wage Campaign sought to address this issue, culminating in the sit-in in May of 2001. That group included “direct employees” as well as employees of contract workers. In H.E.R.E., Harvard has both. Sadly, the current crop of students doesn’t care about on campus workers.

Nonetheless, after taking the above picture and officer of HUPD admonished me to get prior approval from University Spokesperson Joe Wrinn. Here’s the thing, one time photographer and union activist has put down his camera lets administration determine what he writes. I’m going the other way.

To Wit, Wherefore, Hut Sut, and So Forth

Robert W. Iuliano, Esq. you are hereby admonished to cease and desist from prior restraint of the free press and interference with a duly elected Union official engaged in concerted labor activity.

That said, I would like to apologize to the officer involved in the event that he be the same as the officer who admonished me to not walk through a hard hat area.

¹The first phase of Bob‘s outsourcing of security at Harvard was to hire Malden based Security Systems International. They were bought by Allied which then merged with Barton.

²The late Polly Price, ‘director of human resources’ made much ado about Harvard being a good place to work. It depends. Marxian analysis though incomplete is useful. Bob was the Assistant General Counsel. He lost – big time.

Things have not gone as we hoped or planned for any of us – You and me and Dave. The building has required more extensive and expensive repairs than you planned. I assumed that when I moved in, I was agreeing to get the use of half the apartment. I thought Dave made the same assumption. I may have been wrong.

The law of rent, as I understand it, assumes that you , by right of ownership, are entitled to payment of money for its use – assuming that it is in condition to support the specified use. It has not been for almost two years. We have entered into a tacit agreement the rent will remain affordable, but that I will continue paying it and conditions will be made right at the soonest practical time. Correlated with this you have been forgiving about exactly when payment is due. I have fallen behind, mostly due to being poorly organized. You have deferred repairs because of difficulty in finding contractors that you feel are both trustworthy and affordable. You have asked me to get caught up so that you could afford to pay a newly found contractor. I have done so. Then the promised repairs have not been made. Usually the situation turned out to be more complex than you believed. I did my best to give you the most accurate information I could. You were quite dismissive of me. I don’t attribute this to mean spiritedness. Perhaps you were in a hurry. Perhaps you just didn’t want to hear bad news. In any case, it is a failure of communication and is the reason for my use of this blog.

More on repairs.

Dave was quite upset with me about your letter. I had not opened it for quite some time. Dave views it as my responsibility to handle the apartment paperwork. But in the six years I’ve been here Dave has not, by his own efforts, despite his agreement to do so, released any of the space of the apartment appropriate to getting my person and effects in order. I have a hard time with organization, but Dave’s view seems to be that I deserve no spce until I get organized. My view is that having my share of the space would help me organize. We discussed this early last week. Dave agreed again to clear some space for me. In two two day visits, he has not. Our relationship, which has been in breach for 6 years, continues to be in breach. Based on his assurance early last week. I did move some stuff from the living room shelves to crates in the dining room – suggested by Sherrie. I then got most of the stuff off the floor. My hope was that this would inspire him to move enough stuff to get the rest of the stuff off the floor and maybe some from my bedroom. It worked as well as my moving the original mound of Dave’s stuff that covered the floor when I moved in – not at all. I got note the “we” were getting somewhere. Our relationship, which has been in breach for 6 years, continues to be in breach.

I have no objection to being more regular with the rent, but I need help to do so. For physical and psychological reasons. I need place to sort and file my papers. It would also be good to have a place to sort the kitchen out. Before the roof caved in [due to water pouring through¹] I had two kitchen cabinets with kitchen stuff in it and “dead storage” on top. Now there is only one and no dead storage.

Link to a fuller account of storage.

We need a new basis for agreement.

1. I undertand that things between you and Mike ended badly. Perhaps it would help if Mike [and friends] would come and do something with the pile of stuff that is still in the basement.

2. It’s tough not have a working drain besides the toilet in the apartment. I think I can fix it myself, but I am prone to feeling overwhelmed by things. I’ve realized that I could ask for help. I don’t think Dave has done any repairs since I’ve been here. Mike clearly did when he was here. Maybe Dave, Mike or friends could help me. Someone with skills better than mine would be good, but just some company might help.

3. The porch needs doing and I will have some time this summer. If Jerrell and/or D’Mon are interested we could do it in exchange for rent stability.

4. As for Skylar Riadd, I don’t know her. We know people who do, but so far they have chosen not to be involved. I will, however, point out that I am now curious as to whether I heard the whole story about her stay/departure from 17 Rowell #1. I am hereby asking. [I no longer believe that I have heard the full story of his loss of the communal house, but I don't know who to ask.]
5. As for what to do about cash, I need to talk to some folks. I’m uncleaar about how many contracts there are and what effect if any expartie conversations between you and Dave might have.

¹The building shell MAY now be sound. We need me to be home during a very heavy rain to be sure. But we also need my neighbors on two, who I really should get to know, to figure out how to keep from overflowing something. It comes through the same opening.

It led to several stacks. This stack in particular,

about a cubic yard [27 Cubic feet] is all Dave’s lies over the fuel line to the oil burner. The line sprang a leak once. D’mon upstairs discovered and moved most of the stack to his space. I only became aware of the problem halfway through. On Dave’s next visit I told Dave about the incident. Dave now says that he heard me tell him about moving the stuff, but that he didn’t hear that it would have to be moved out of D’Mon’s space. So it sat there about two months until D’Mon got tired of waiting and moved it back himself. Maybe this is a contributing cause to why he has never paid me back the $188 I lent him to buy heating oil.

This stack, according to Dave, is all Mike’s stuff. I think I heard Dave say he would talk to Mike about it. Six years later, it’s still there. I think you may have moved part of it at one point.

Dave said he felt bad about that. I asked him to try to get rid of some stuff so that I could:

a) move more of his stuff that was not actively used. Since he is here only 2-4 days a month, a lot falls into that category.

b) move some of my own inactive stuff to the basement.

I was optimistic that I would be able to build shelves enough to get my stuff in reasonable order without moving Dave’s stuff. I ask you, is this the behavior of someone gratuitously seeks conflict?

I built shelves. In the dining room:

I knew you would be less than thrilled if I drilled holes in the wall. So I didn’t. It seemed to me you were unhappy enough as it was with my attempt at completely reversible construction. But this limits the load carrying ability. And the basement being full, I had to put Dave’s stuff on the left half. It’s fairly heavy. The right is the empty equipment boxes in case in need to send something back for repair. And papers turn out to be extraordinarily heavy.

And the living room:

Where there is not as good support. The stuff I put up there, even though lighter, frequently ends up on the floor. And it requires a step stool to get anything.

I.O.U. the story of Gyodi and Dave discovering that his selving system was inadequate. Guess who fixed it?

I also move some of Dave and my stuff into the pantry.

I realized that my trying to wedge myself in around Dave’s stuff was unrealistic. I did have the front room in reasonable shape and it was highly uncomfortable, but I was marginally able to use it for i think about a year. I will be able to put better numbers on it with time. There is an audit trail.  I’m pretty sure it was prodding Dave  for another couple of years that led to Dave moving 4 shopping bags of stuff out to the curb. Thing is I didn’t see any space open in the basement. And I did slowly degenerate into the mess that was what the window guys tromped all over, because you refused to ask them to start on floor three and work down.

This is getting tedious for me. I sure it was like that for you a while ago. In any case, I have been unable to unpack in any reasonable way, things that I regularly use, because Dave has reserved almost all of the available active and static storage to his own use. Dave’s use of storage of any kind is almost all static. Since he is seldom here, he has little opportunity to use any of it. Most of it has never been used in 6 years.

Surely there is a better arrangement.

This thing’s been there I think going on two years now. Yes, there certainly have been other serious mishaps to the building along the way. And yes I am behind in the rent. The law as I understand it does not the intend that the tenant should keep paying rent while awaiting repairs. However, I have in the past. We all appreciate that you are trying to capitalize the building on very limited resources. However, the law as I understand it, attempts to set a limit to the extent to which tenants of limited means can be required to do that. The repairs are made before payment is made. On the other hand, the law as I understand it, prescribes a definite protocol

Dave’s response to this condition threefold:

1) To express moral superiority in the form, “Doesn’t she know that if she let’s it go, the water pouring through the floor will weaken the structure of the building?” I should point out that most of the bailing that was done to prevent that was done by me. However, it the purpose of this moral superiority is anything but clear to me, since:

2) He insists that aside from informing you, I should take no further action. i.e. live with it. This is convenient for Dave because:

a) He’s rarely here.

b) He doesn’t cook. At best, he reheats.

Basically, once he’s gotten his moral superiority cookies, it’ no skin off his nose.

We each have our own idea about where the preponderance of nuttiness lies. I have invited a number of people into the discussion to get our widely differing views to converge.
You thought the tub needed caulking. I thought that the leak in the roof still wasn’t fixed. We were both

wrong.